


sweet dreams (are made of this)

by NewWonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Gen, M/M, Post Reichenbach, also wet ones, good ones and bad ones, minor imaginary gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewWonder/pseuds/NewWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only one dream John doesn't dream any longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet dreams (are made of this)

Sometimes, John dreams of stitching up wounds. Knife slashes and gunshot holes, slit muscles and torn limbs.  
In his dreams, his hand is steady, his head calm. He pulls the edges of the wound together, sews them, carefully, so as not to cause any more unnecessary pain to the faceless body under his palms, cuts the thread. The sewn wound is red and angry, slowly bleeding around the edges; it looks like neat, skillful handicraft, meticulous delicate embroidery on soft human skin.  
John is not an artist, not desperately in love with useless ethereal beauty created and cherished entirely for its own sake, but he used to play clarinet at school, right? So there must be... something.  
He wakes up and goes to work. Sometimes, his dreams turn out to be prophetic.  
The red of the slash always clashes so beautifully with sickly grayish skin. He stitches it up, feeling vaguely like Van Gogh. On days like these, he sleeps best.

 

There are dreams which seem senseless and slip away when his eyelashes fly open, but which never fail to put a smile on his face – a smile that lingers on John's lips when he wakes up, clings to his mouth all day long. These dreams feel a like half-forgotten memory; they smell of Harry's laughter, they sound like hot sun-drenched summer and taste like Sherlock's voice.

 

There are dark, stifling nights, numb with silence, when air grates like sand on John's skin and nose and lungs, when he lies, awake, aware of every second slowly slipping away. For hours that feel like aeons, he struggles to fall asleep, and then – he does fall, into the dark scorching abyss of a dream that engulfs John like the hot, slippery, muscly gut of a hungry predator, weighing him down like a vest stuffed with explosives, and in the morning he feels like he's been half-digested and puked out.

 

Seldom, on rare nights, John dreams he's playing rugby.  
The smell of fresh grass and fresh sweat fills his lungs, his limbs ache sweetly from the running and tackling, and the rush of victory is heady, and the sensation of loss is never overwhelming because there will be another match, one they'll win, and meanwhile they can go drinking with their pals from the other team. They are young and thrumming with life, and living feels like the greatest victory ever.  
Sometimes John dreams of playing clarinet, and that's – well, that's just plain embarrassing.

 

But then, there are nights when John dreams of shooting.  
The mark is blurry, irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the handle of the gun growing out of his palm. The trigger feels like another joint of his finger, and it's easy to imagine it is not the bullet that kills the target but a light touch of John's finger.  
He wakes up calm and deadly still, snapping into sharp awareness the moment he opens his eyes.  
When there's Sherlock behind him, at night, pointing out his target, he feels best through the following day.

 

More often than not he dreams of buxom breasts and wet silky pussies, milky skin and full round arses, long lean legs and plush lips, pale and gloriously bow-shaped.  
That might be his most insignificant problem yet, seeing as it is cured so easily (of course, unless Sherlock interferes again, the wanker).

 

There is one time when John dreams of Harry, chalky pale and naked, flayed open and hanged from a hook through her liver. Her eyes are wide open, glassy and unseeing. The next morning, John calls her and asks for a meeting. He's relieved to see she seems fine, if a bit hyper. But then again, it's Harry, this is what passes for normal for her.  
Good lord, John thinks, I moved out from my sister’s and ended up with her male version.

 

John wakes up with a start, gasping and trembling. A vague memory of Sherlock's lips and legs spread open for him lingers for a short disquieting moment before slipping away like a breath of wind, flowing through John's fingers, no catching it, no holding on to the vision.  
John frowns, shakes his head brusquely, still somewhat discomfited, and gets up to fix himself a cuppa. It's only a minute before he doesn't remember his dream anymore.

 

There are also nights when John doesn't dream at all. He's usually tired on nights like these, from running and chasing and following and being amazed, not to mention, you know, his _normal job_ , and his body buzzes with a pleasant kind of exhaustion. He never wakes up before morning, on nights like these, even if Sherlock bangs on his ceiling (John’s floor) with a mop handle from his room.

 

There is only one dream John doesn't dream any longer. Ruthless land, overwhelming with heat and alienation, sharp with cold and bullets; people killing and people dying, blood and dust, parched grass and merciless sun. His brothers in arms, Bill, Sebastian.  
He doesn't dream of it anymore because he's got it all back, and once again, for the first time in a long while, he is content.

 

* * *

 

All these nights are replaced now with visions of Sherlock and flight.  
John wakes up to the soundtrack of Sherlock's final goodbye. He is still in his bed; the pillow is wet against his cheek.  
He gets up, fetches himself a glass of water from the kitchen. Washes down some pills, careful so as not to take more than strictly necessary.  
Sherlock may have felt like his whole life, but he wasn't. There is more to John than wild chases and endless patience and blind adoration. There is something of John that isn't Sherlock's, that isn't infused with him, soaked with thoughts of him, tuned to the rhythm of his glorious madness. John tells himself that, struggles to believe it.  
His heart isn't crushed and splayed open on the pavement below St. Bart's. His life isn't bereft of anything even remotely worthwhile.  
His voice is steady and calm when he thanks his colleagues for their condolences, when he answers Lestrade's worried calls, when he tells Mrs. Hudson he's moving.  
He takes to putting a glass of water on the nightstand before sleep, next to the pills. The glass is empty every next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another pointless angsty post-Reichenbach. I know, I know. *hangs head in shame*


End file.
